I was framed for murder, says Mallard

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The man wrongfully convicted of murdering West Australian woman Pamela Lawrence says he still suffers abuse from members of the public who think he is "some sort of psycho".

In 1995, Andrew Mallard was convicted of the brutal murder of the Perth wife and mother and sentenced to 20 years in jail.

He served 12 years in prison until the combined efforts of a journalist, politician and a team of high-profile, pro bono lawyers finally saw him exonerated.

On ABC 1's Australian Story, Mallard speaks on camera for the first time, describing the circumstances leading up to his wrongful imprisonment and the torment he endured during his incarceration.

"I was wrongfully imprisoned. There's a stigma that goes with that and still goes with that," he tells the program.

"I know what they did to me and it's the truth. They framed me for a murder I did not commit."

Journalist Colleen Egan had worked on the Mallard case for two years when she became convinced there had been a miscarriage of justice.

"There probably are still people out there who believe that Andrew did it. There probably always will be," Ms Egan said.

"It was just a cruel twist of fate that put him on a collision course with this inquiry and it was just a matter of fact that there were police who were willing to act dishonestly.

"There was a prosecutor willing to run a case that wasn't quite right, and there were three judges who refused to believe it when evidence was put in front of them, and they saw what the High Court saw."

Desperate in her efforts to find new evidence, she took a risk in seeking the assistance of shadow attorney-general John Quigley, who had been the WA Police Union's lawyer for 25 years.

Soon Mr Quigley, with his intimate knowledge of policing practices, made a breakthrough, finding crucial evidence never revealed to the defence.

"There was never a moment that I thought that this is too long or this is too hard," Mr Quigley said.

"I was by this stage driven by both anger and acute embarrassment - acute embarrassment of the legal profession and the judiciary in Perth, that I'd been part of this whole system for 30 years."

Mallard's supporters were devastated three years later when, despite the new evidence, a fresh appeal to the WA Supreme Court failed.

But they fought on.

It would be another two years before Mallard's conviction was quashed by the High Court amid allegations of police and prosecution misconduct.

For the family of Mrs Lawrence, their devastation at her loss was compounded by the very public fight to clear the man they believed was her murderer.

"When there seemed to be this team around [Mallard] of quite senior and important people working for his side... we felt as though they were fighting to get mum's killer out of jail," Ms Lawrence's daughter, Katie Kingdon, said.

"We felt as though no-one cared what we'd been through and that he'd somehow convinced them of his innocence. At the time, it didn't occur to us that the justice system could have failed so dismally."

Later, during a cold case review, new forensic evidence pointed to another man now considered most likely to be the real murderer, but the case was further complicated by his suicide in a West Australian prison cell.

Watch part one of Australian Story's The Wronged Man at 8pm AEST tonight.